P90X Licensing, Certifications Now Available to Fitness Facility Operators

Fitness facility operators who want to get in on the P90X craze now have a way to bring that program into their facilities. Beachbody, the company that created the brand, is offering P90X certification to trainers and free licensing of the programs to facility owners.

The P90X certification and licensing program is the first of Beachbody’s home-exercise programs that it plans to launch into the commercial fitness market. Its other programs include Insanity, TurboFire and Brazilian Butt Lift.

“We’ve had so many requests from gyms and trainers to use our training programs and brands in the commercial environment that it was clearly time to launch this new aspect of the business,” says Carl Daikeler, CEO of Beachbody LLC, Santa Monica, CA.

To help it with its recently launched certification business, Beachbody has partnered with Powder Blue Productions, a group exercise certification organization. Powder Blue Productions already certifies trainers in its own lineup of group-exercise programs, such as TurboKick, PiYo and Hip Hop Hustle.

By getting P90X training, personal trainers also can earn continuing education units through the National Academy of Sports Medicine (NASM), which has a partnership with Beachbody.

Licensing of the P90X program is free, provided facility operators abide by the licensing agreement, Daikeler says. Beachbody also offers marketing materials to licensed facilities.

P90X certification, which costs $498 and should be renewed every two years, starts with an online program that “qualifies” trainers so they are familiar with the fundamentals of the P90X program and its nutrition aspect before participating in a two-day training class. The training also includes how to keep clients motivated and how to use P90X certification to help a trainer or gym build a business around P90X. At the end of the class, trainers are certified and receive a P90X course manual along with detailed information about all 12 P90X workouts.

Between March, when the first certification class was offered, and the first week of August, 700 people had been certified, Daikeler says. Classes are held around the country as well as in the Santa Monica headquarters.

Most P90X-licensed fitness facilities are using the program in challenge teams, which involve five or six people committing to do the program together and follow the dietary guidelines for 90 days, Daikeler says.

The popularity of hard-driving programs such as P90X is simple to explain, Daikeler says.

“I think people aspire to do something dramatic, meaning it’s not easy to put together, to change your lifestyle to get healthy and fit,” he says. “So if people are going to take a deep breath and jump into a healthier lifestyle, they want to do it all the way. They are not doing it casually.”

Even though gyms have represented this possibility for dramatic change for decades, they were lacking what P90X can offer, Daikeler says.

“What gyms didn’t have before was a brand with literally $300 million in advertising behind it that in a blink informed people of what the experience and end results were going to be like,” he says. “That’s what P90X brings to the table now is, ‘Oh, I’m going to do that, and these are going to be my results. And it’s not going to be easy.’”

Although clubs could create their own P90X-style program, they do not need to spend the time and money to do so because Beachbody has already established this brand without a cost to gym owners, he says. The company also has perks that many gym owners could not offer.

Two of those perks are that participants who submit their before and after photos, whether they did the program with the DVDs or working with a P90X certified trainer, receive a free T-shirt and are eligible for more than $1 million in success story contest prizes given out each year. One man who lost 220 pounds doing Beachbody programs just received a $100,000 check from the company, Daikeler says.

A gym gets to take advantage of those incentives at no cost, he says.

Beachbody’s move into the club market also will help its own growth.

“Our business grows by more and more people representing how P90X works to change your body,” Daikeler says. “People become walking billboards. So either they are inspired to buy P90X DVDs by those walking billboards or they are inspired to find a P90X gym or trainer, which helps create demand for P90X certification.”

Despite rumors about possible P90X clubs, the company does not have plans to open any facilities, Daikeler says, although some P90X certified trainers have opened facilities that are dedicated to teaching and training clients in P90X.